Peacin' Out: Hasta la vista!

Well, this is it. I'm sitting in the Miami airport waiting to fly to Asunción in a couple of hours. It's been slightly overwhelming the last five days trying to prepare for this moment. First there was the fabulous good bye party at Nina's, with lots of black dresses, cocktails and volcanoes, as you can see in the photo. I spent the next day recovering in some hot springs up in the Jemez, which was a perfect way to end my time in New Mexico. The day before leaving I spent all day at school running around trying wrap things up for my degree and I think I succeeded. We'll see in December if it's official or not. This all left little time to officially prepare for my trip, so I was up until 2:00 am packing the night before I flew out of Albuquerque. I managed to fit all of my belongings for the next two years in a big packpack, a duffelbag and two smallish carry-ons. My checked luggage weighed in at 81 lbs, and we had an 80 lb limit. I'm pretty proud of how close I got and there was no complaints for the extra pound, thank goodness.

I met up with the rest of the group headed down to Paraguay at the hotel here in Miami. There is a grand total of 42 of us! We had a really useless orientation earlier today where we were treated like 5 year olds. I'm not looking forward to more of that as the training continues. But I think the group is really good, overall. There's one woman over 60, the rest under 30, 18 males, the rest female, 1 married couple, lots of people leaving behind girlfriends/boyfriends, others who don't know Spanish all that well and a lot of different states represented. I'm the only one from New Mexico - woo woo! It's really nice to be around so many people who understand why I've made the decision to join the Peace Corps, with no judgement or criticisms. We're all in this together.

And whatever "this" is feels very strange right now. I'm leaving behind everything I know and love to enter a world of who the hell knows what. But that's all part of the adventure. Grad school was really draining on me, slowly sucking the lifeblood from my soul. Now it's time to re-energize my spirit and enjoy life as it comes. That part is exciting. The rest is immensely terrifying.

Once again, I want to graciously thank all my wonderful friends and family for their support and encouragement. I hate to make it sound like I'm dying (and trust me, that's how the last few weeks have felt at times), but I love you all and I hope you know how important you are in my life. Please please please write me letters, send me stuff and come visit!!!!!!!! When else would you ever go to Paraguay? Now is the time......

Here are some more pictures of my last few weeks in the states, visiting and hanging out with my peeps.